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Preference higherPerformance in 3.9 and noise

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Mikael Kindborg-2

Preference higherPerformance in 3.9 and noise

Hi.

I have been annoyed by Squeak 3.9 making a disturbing high frequency
sounding "noise" on my machine, which I speculate is related to the
graphics card.

Did some research on this and found nothing until I stumbled across
the higherPerformance preference and studied how it was used in the
update loop in the code. (It is on by default in 3.9)

Turns out that if the preference is turned off the noise disappears.
Now working in 3.9 is a very pleasant experience. Downloaded the
latest version of 3.9 today and our project works just fine.

Many thanks to you are working on 3.9. As mentioned in another thread,
duplicateAllControlAndAltKeys is great, this will make it easier to
use Squeak for teaching (e.g. at our university) because people will
not be irritated by inconsistent shortcut keys.

Best, Micke

stéphane ducasse-2

Re: Preference higherPerformance in 3.9 and noise

Hi mikael

Tx.
I hope your getting fun at your university. We should keep in touch.

Stef

On 13 juil. 06, at 14:39, Mikael Kindborg wrote:

> Hi.
>
> I have been annoyed by Squeak 3.9 making a disturbing high frequency
> sounding "noise" on my machine, which I speculate is related to the
> graphics card.
>
> Did some research on this and found nothing until I stumbled across
> the higherPerformance preference and studied how it was used in the
> update loop in the code. (It is on by default in 3.9)
>
> Turns out that if the preference is turned off the noise disappears.
> Now working in 3.9 is a very pleasant experience. Downloaded the
> latest version of 3.9 today and our project works just fine.
>
> Many thanks to you are working on 3.9. As mentioned in another thread,
> duplicateAllControlAndAltKeys is great, this will make it easier to
> use Squeak for teaching (e.g. at our university) because people will
> not be irritated by inconsistent shortcut keys.
>
> Best, Micke
>

johnmci

Re: Preference higherPerformance in 3.9 and noise

I'm wondering why this is on in 3.9, it consumes *lots* of CPU cycles

>> Did some research on this and found nothing until I stumbled across
>> the higherPerformance preference and studied how it was used in the
>> update loop in the code. (It is on by default in 3.9)
>>
>> Turns out that if the preference is turned off the noise disappears.
>> Now working in 3.9 is a very pleasant experience. Downloaded the
>> latest version of 3.9 today and our project works just fine.

--
========================================================================
===
John M. McIntosh <[hidden email]>
Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd. http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com
========================================================================
===

Adrian Lienhard

Re: Preference higherPerformance in 3.9 and noise

I wonder too... this caused us some headache because a few images
running on a slow test server already used up all cpu.

The high cpu usage first appeared in 6706, exactly when traits were
introduced. So, my first guess was that there was something wrong
with traits...
But apparently this is caused by this preference which has been
manually enable in the distribution image: in a 6705 image the
preference is set to false, and after updating this image to 6706 it
is still disabled. So, was the change intended?

Adrian

On Jul 14, 2006, at 00:27 , John M McIntosh wrote:

> I'm wondering why this is on in 3.9, it consumes *lots* of CPU cycles
>
>>> Did some research on this and found nothing until I stumbled across
>>> the higherPerformance preference and studied how it was used in the
>>> update loop in the code. (It is on by default in 3.9)
>>>
>>> Turns out that if the preference is turned off the noise disappears.
>>> Now working in 3.9 is a very pleasant experience. Downloaded the
>>> latest version of 3.9 today and our project works just fine.
>
> --
> ======================================================================
> =====
> John M. McIntosh <[hidden email]>
> Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd. http://
> www.smalltalkconsulting.com
> ======================================================================
> =====
>
>
>

stéphane ducasse-2

Re: Preference higherPerformance in 3.9 and noise

I do not know.
I should be off in 7043

BTW: If this preference is so bad why do we keep it.

> I wonder too... this caused us some headache because a few images
> running on a slow test server already used up all cpu.
>
> The high cpu usage first appeared in 6706, exactly when traits were
> introduced. So, my first guess was that there was something wrong
> with traits...
> But apparently this is caused by this preference which has been
> manually enable in the distribution image: in a 6705 image the
> preference is set to false, and after updating this image to 6706
> it is still disabled. So, was the change intended?
>
> Adrian
>
>
> On Jul 14, 2006, at 00:27 , John M McIntosh wrote:
>
>> I'm wondering why this is on in 3.9, it consumes *lots* of CPU cycles
>>
>>>> Did some research on this and found nothing until I stumbled across
>>>> the higherPerformance preference and studied how it was used in the
>>>> update loop in the code. (It is on by default in 3.9)
>>>>
>>>> Turns out that if the preference is turned off the noise
>>>> disappears.
>>>> Now working in 3.9 is a very pleasant experience. Downloaded the
>>>> latest version of 3.9 today and our project works just fine.
>>
>> --
>> =====================================================================
>> ======
>> John M. McIntosh <[hidden email]>
>> Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd. http://
>> www.smalltalkconsulting.com
>> =====================================================================
>> ======
>>
>>
>>
>
>

Bert Freudenberg-3

Re: Preference higherPerformance in 3.9 and noise

Because sometimes you really want to give Squeak all the cycles it
could possibly get. That's what the preference does - enabling it
doesn't give so much time back to the OS. Very useful for smooth
animations.

It just shouldn't be on by default.

- Bert -

Am 14.07.2006 um 17:07 schrieb stéphane ducasse:

> I do not know.
> I should be off in 7043
>
> BTW: If this preference is so bad why do we keep it.
>
>> I wonder too... this caused us some headache because a few images
>> running on a slow test server already used up all cpu.
>>
>> The high cpu usage first appeared in 6706, exactly when traits
>> were introduced. So, my first guess was that there was something
>> wrong with traits...
>> But apparently this is caused by this preference which has been
>> manually enable in the distribution image: in a 6705 image the
>> preference is set to false, and after updating this image to 6706
>> it is still disabled. So, was the change intended?
>>
>> Adrian
>>
>>
>> On Jul 14, 2006, at 00:27 , John M McIntosh wrote:
>>
>>> I'm wondering why this is on in 3.9, it consumes *lots* of CPU
>>> cycles
>>>
>>>>> Did some research on this and found nothing until I stumbled
>>>>> across
>>>>> the higherPerformance preference and studied how it was used in
>>>>> the
>>>>> update loop in the code. (It is on by default in 3.9)
>>>>>
>>>>> Turns out that if the preference is turned off the noise
>>>>> disappears.
>>>>> Now working in 3.9 is a very pleasant experience. Downloaded the
>>>>> latest version of 3.9 today and our project works just fine.
>>>
>>> --
>>> ====================================================================
>>> =======
>>> John M. McIntosh <[hidden email]>
>>> Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd. http://
>>> www.smalltalkconsulting.com
>>> ====================================================================
>>> =======
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>

Mikael Kindborg-2

Re: Preference higherPerformance in 3.9 and noise

Hi.

Regarding the noise problem I mentioned, and if someone else has the
same problem, I did some experimenting with different values for the
delay in this method:

Class WorldState

doOneCycleFor: aWorld
"Do one cycle of the interaction loop. This method is called
repeatedly when the world is running.

This is a moderately private method; a better alternative is usually
either to wait for events or to check the state of things from #step
methods."

self interCyclePause: (Preferences higherPerformance ifTrue: [1]
ifFalse: [MinCycleLapse]).
self doOneCycleNowFor: aWorld.

Changing the higerPerformance delay value to 4 or 5 causes the noise
to go away on my machine. The value of MinCycleLapse is 20 by the way.

Best, Micke

On 7/14/06, Bert Freudenberg <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Because sometimes you really want to give Squeak all the cycles it
> could possibly get. That's what the preference does - enabling it
> doesn't give so much time back to the OS. Very useful for smooth
> animations.
>
> It just shouldn't be on by default.
>
> - Bert -
>

Mikael Kindborg-2

Re: Preference higherPerformance in 3.9 and noise

In reply to this post by stéphane ducasse-2

Hi, good to hear from you, perhaps we could do an Erasmus exchange at
some point? (Should explain that Erasmus is a European union
university teacher excange program, perhaps more people in Europe
would be interested in this?)
Best, Micke

On 7/14/06, stéphane ducasse <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi mikael
>
> Tx.
> I hope your getting fun at your university. We should keep in touch.
>
> Stef
>
> On 13 juil. 06, at 14:39, Mikael Kindborg wrote:
>
> > Hi.
> >
> > I have been annoyed by Squeak 3.9 making a disturbing high frequency
> > sounding "noise" on my machine, which I speculate is related to the
> > graphics card.
> >
> > Did some research on this and found nothing until I stumbled across
> > the higherPerformance preference and studied how it was used in the
> > update loop in the code. (It is on by default in 3.9)
> >
> > Turns out that if the preference is turned off the noise disappears.
> > Now working in 3.9 is a very pleasant experience. Downloaded the
> > latest version of 3.9 today and our project works just fine.
> >
> > Many thanks to you are working on 3.9. As mentioned in another thread,
> > duplicateAllControlAndAltKeys is great, this will make it easier to
> > use Squeak for teaching (e.g. at our university) because people will
> > not be irritated by inconsistent shortcut keys.
> >
> > Best, Micke
> >
>
>
>